Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
And yet somehow the skittering little insects win because the big guy's idiot teammates don't keep them away from his heel.
So, in case you missed it, DeMarcus Cousins had himself an ok game. He notched himself 39pts and 24rebs on the night, something only 4 other players in the past 30 years have done (database in not rebound searchable before '85-86), including our own Chris Webber in that epic OT game against Indiana which we also somehow lost (other three = Hakeem, Ewing and...Joe BarryCarroll??). Difference being of course Indiana was good in those days. Meanwhile Philadelphia beat our heartless up and down weenies with the likes of Robert Covington and Ish Smith and a healthy dose of scrap. Oy vey.
P.S. Thanks Ben for making my other thread eternally relevant. Show up or not. Jsut do it every night so we know what to do with you.
P.P.S. So apparently sometime in the past 48 hours Andre Miller crossed that not so invisible line on the court from saavy vet to senile old goat.
In fact really, anybody out there pretending to play guard was a complete wreck int heir decisionmaking and defense.
These games have to worry, after 10 years of ridiculous don't give an f about defensing, to have it continue even now, with an old coach who knows better, or should. And to have a monster effort from Cuz so wasted...these are precisely the sorts of games that get stars thinking "well what else can I possibly do? Maybe its just not going to happen here". Precisely. Just...blech.
Boxscore
Stats: 40min 24pts (7-17, 1-5, 9-10) 4reb 3ast 1stl 1blk 4TO
Gay ( C ) -- hit an early three, but otherwise really did not play like he had any real advantage out there in the first half, and a certain Cameroonian prince of our acquaintance may have had something to do with that. Got himself picked up top several times and didn't score again until an easy leakout in the mid 2nd. Then hammered in a big contested dunk down the lane over TRob in the late half. Added an alley oop to Ben in the open court just before half for jsut about the only good thing Ben was going to do either. Took a long time to get going in the third as well as the lead slipped. Playing tired on defense where the closeouts were weak and none of Philly's scrubs had any particular problem going around him, and was turning it over on offense where he was barely efficient. The points did keep on piling up, he was doing something, but it felt kind of like a soft and distracted something. And down the stretch he helped insure there would be no comeback from their comeback, seeming to tail along after Andre and follow his stupid 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 bricks with one of his own. In the final minutes for no apparent reason chose to keep on pulling up for long bricked threes trying to play the hero, but instead basically turning the ball over and killing us. 24pts and a smattering of other stats, but this felt soft and unfocused, and the decision making down the stretch was monumentally bad. --Brick
Stats: 12min 6pts (3-4, 0-0, 0-0) 3reb 0ast 0stl 0blk 1TO
Landry ( C ) -- one of the things Karl has done successfully has been to institute a consistent and short 9 man rotation, and now that Landry is starting he appears to be a short minute early 1st/early 3rd type spot starter while others play the bulk of the minutes. Tonight the first stint of those minutes in the first quarter was totally pointless. Cuz was just walking through the physically weak Philly frontline, and Carl just was being paid good money to watch it all happen and go "wow". He didn't score, didn't rebound, and the 76ers two tweener forwards were staying way outside where Carl wasn't going to defend effectively even if he tried. All his numbers came in the third quarter stint, before the wheels entirely came off. After a tongue lashing at halftime the Sixers came out determined to swarm Cousins the way Japanese bees do to invading giant asian hornets, and with so much attention being paid to Cuz, Carl was relatively free to take a few passes from Ray for a jumper and a couple of little moves underneath. He grabbed a couple of rebounds on the backside of the scrum too. But those were all the minutes he was destined to get with both Jason and DWill competing for them, and despite a few effective minutes there its hard to go too much above a C for 6pts 3rebs and no particular defense. --Brick
Cousins ( A+ ) -- well, for something this enormous ironically fewer words will do as well as more: Cuz just stomped all over the Sixers inside. If you ever rooted for King Kong to just knock those annoying biplanes out of the sky and snack on their pilots, this was your movie. The only other player in the last 25 years to reach 39pts 24rebs in the same game was our own Chris Webber, in OT against the Pacers, 14 years ago. Before that you have to go back to the 80s. That''s what happens when the opposing coach starts a frontcourt with listed weights of 230 (Mbah a Moute), 228 (Noel), 215 (Covington) and then tries to have Noel guard your 270lb center 1 on 1. The first half shotchart was comical I think Cuz only had 2 misses, and all but 1 of the shots was within 3ft of the rim. Nor was it just offense. On defense Cuz was wading in and sticking one of those great hands up, and the smaller herd animals were just scattering like so much chafe. By halftime, HALFTIME, he had 22pts and 15rebs.
It looked like a varsity vs. J.V. scrimmage with that one kid who's a foot taller than everybody else rampaging around in the middle. Things got much more difficult after half (and hence he "only" notched 17ppts 9reb in the 2nd half) as the Sixers got a talking to by their coach (wish ours would do same) and came out of the break fired up, swarming, and fouling. They were pumped up to stop Cuz in particular, and if one of them fouled and got knocked on his ass, the whole team would run over to pick him up and congratulate him. Cuz started looking a bit tired of having to shed monkeys beating on his head every trip, the scoring pace slowed, and he went to the bench for his rest...at which point of course the wheels fell completely off, because the truth of the matter was the ONLY reason the Sixers, the no name Sixers, weren't kicking the crap out of us all game long was because of Cuz's monster game. He got back in to start the 4th with us suddenly down double figures and tried to help by taking several charges, but wow was the rest of the team doing nothing by that point. And the Sixers had finally, belatedly, inserted their lone big body Henry Sims, who had a big game against Cuz last year and really turned the inside battle into a war with multiple hard fouls. But Cuz kept on piling up the numbers, after a slow start started hitting all the FTs he was getting from the Sixers' tactics, and down the stretch tried to win it for us making multiple steals in the final two minutes, including an open court one which he finished with a layup (goaltended) and a second one which he threw out to Miller...only to watch Miller act like a 19yr old rookie and try to race down and force up a 1 on 2 layup which turned into a TO. Then Cuz had to watch as Rudy tried to hero it with repeated random long three point attempts. Piled up more rebounds (but also more misses) than he got credited for in the final minute of the game as he ferociously chased and banged and tipped, tipped, tipped blown shot after blown shot trying to get something to fall to save us. It was a huge effort, but where was the help? Now it wasn't actually a perfect game -- he probably allowed Noel to drive around him a few more times than he really needed to, he went through a shaky FT spell that helped confirm for the Sixers that hacking the hell out of him in a pack was the way to go -- but it was a monster game at a level the NBA has rarely seen out of big men in the modern era. Not even Shaq ever hit 39 and 24. We are not worthy. Literally. --BrickStats: 31min 4pts (2-7, 0-1, 0-0) 2reb 2ast 1stl 1blk 3TO
McLemore ( D- ) -- Lordy, lordy, lordy! With Ben, it seems to be feast or famine. How can a player go from having such a great night in the last game, to such a pitiful performance tonight. It's the extremes that are killing him. Only 4 points tonight on 2 of 7 shooting. I have to give some props to Jakarr Sampson, who was practically wearing McLemore's uniform. This was a night when Ben's inability to create for himself against a good defender was on full display. When he did get an open shot, he missed. Both of Ben's baskets were at the basket. One off of an alley oop from Gay. The other a nice finish to a fast break. Except for the wide open missed three, everything else had the look of desperation about it. All four of his points came in the first half. He spent the majority of his time in the second half turning the ball over. He managed to cram all this offense into just 31 minutes of playing time. I apologize for my sarcasm, but watching a game like this one changes a man. A monastery sounds appealing right now. But I digress. Defensively Ben was somewhere between OK, and good. He had some very good moments, and did a much better job of guarding Covington in the second half, than either Gay or Williams did in the first half. I thought he did a good job of guarding Sampson. who did score 10 points, but only scored 2 of his baskets against McLemore. He made a great play stopping a basket on a fast break in the first quarter. He did get caught in a couple of screens, and he lost Hollis Thompson on a play. On the whole, I don't have any complaints defensively, but Ben has to find some middle ground offensively instead of just falling off the planet on his bad nights. --Baja
Stats: 31min 9pts (4-12, 1-3, 0-0) 1reb 8ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
McCallum ( ) -- --Brick
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